The purpose of this paper is to discuss some problems in identifying stances and the features that express these stances in televised political debates where there is conflict escalation. The study is based on an analysis of video-recorded political debates in different European languages (Italian (1), German (2) and US-American English (1)) and consists of a qualitative analysis of the videos in order to understand the similarities and differences in the use of social signals for stances in conflict situations in a similar setting (televised political debate) in three western cultures. ©2012 IEEE.